March 13, 2026
New research methods are changing what we know about Head Start, the federal program that provides early childhood education and health assistance to low-income families.
Since the program’s inception in 1965, researchers have been asking “Does Head Start work?” The wealth of data accumulated over the decades and innovative new methodologies have allowed the Upjohn Institute’s Chloe Gibbs to push past this question and examine specifics: When do the programs work well? Under what conditions, with what features, and for which children?
The new paper provides an analytic review of recent, high-quality studies of Head Start, many of which were written over the past 10 to 15 years. These papers benefit from advances in social science methodology and sometimes point in different directions than previous work.
Head Start was designed to be flexible. There is no single Head Start program, and how well or poorly any local implementation performs can vary dramatically across centers. In general, however, the research suggests that Head Start improves life outcomes for the most disadvantaged children, especially for those who would not have another option for formal preschool.
New evidence also suggests that the program’s effects on short- or medium-run test scores have little relationship to long-run outcomes. This finding points to improvements in children’s social, emotional, or behavioral skills, which are less frequently measured, as the channels to Head Start’s long-term benefits.
Evidence also points to benefits for Head Start parents by enabling them to work while the children attend the program. In addition, children’s participation generates positive spillovers to siblings, peers, and even participants’ own children later in life, suggesting that Head Start’s benefit-cost ratio is even larger than typically calculated.
Measuring the long-term and broader effects of Head Start is critical in guiding policymakers in making public investments in early childhood. Although not every lesson from Head Start may apply in today’s complex and fragmented early childhood care and education landscape, policymakers and practitioners can use this evidence to direct resources toward children and families for whom participation in high-quality programs matters most.
The paper, Early Learning Across Decades: Advances in Measuring Head Start Effectiveness, is forthcoming in the Journal of Economic Literature.
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